Saturday, April 29, 2017

Low-Carb Diet Works In Overweight Japanese Type 2 Diabetes

A randomized controlled clinical trial found superior results in
diabetes with a moderate low-carb diet, judging from weight loss and
hemoglobin A1c.

I don’t know how many carbs the typical Japanese person eats in a
day. In the U.S., it’s 250-300 grams. Here’s how the study at hand was
done:“This prospective, randomized, open-label, comparative study included
66 T2DM patients with HbA1c >7.5% even after receiving repeated
education programs on Calorie-Restricted Dieting (CRD). They were
randomly allocated to either the 130g/day Low-Carb Diet (LCD) group
(n = 33) or CRD group (n = 33). Patients received personal nutrition
education of CRD or LCD for 30 min at baseline, 1, 2, 4, and 6 months.
Patients of the CRD group were advised to maintain the intake of
calories and balance of macronutrients (28× ideal body weight calories
per day). [If I understand correctly, a 170-lb (77.2 kg) person would be
recommended to eat 2160 calories/day.] Patients of the LCD group were
advised to maintain the intake of 130 g/day carbohydrate without other
specific restrictions. Several parameters were assessed at baseline and 6
months after each intervention. The primary endpoint was a change in
HbA1c level from baseline to the end of the study.At baseline, body mass index (BMI) and HbA1c were 26.5 and 8.3, and
26.7 kg/m2 and 8.0%, in the CRD and LCD, respectively. At the end of the
study, HbA1c decreased by −0.65% in the LCD group, compared with 0.00%
in the CRD group (p < 0.01). Also, the decrease in BMI in the LCD
group [−0.58 kg/m2] exceeded that observed in the CRD group (p = 0.03).